


Cartagena

by kerlin



Category: Alias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-11 09:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerlin/pseuds/kerlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Marcus Dixon is one of the strongest people I've ever known."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cartagena

**Author's Note:**

> post-ep for 2x20, "Countdown"

"Hey."

Sydney twisted her neck to look back over her shoulder and propped her chin up on her hand to stay in that position. "Hey back."

Vaughn smiled softly. "You want to talk about it?"

Did she? "I’m not sure," she answered, and rolled back around to tuck her arm under the pillow and watch the curtains sway with air movement from the heater.

"Okay," he agreed companionably, and flopped himself down on the bed behind her. He wasn’t quite close enough to touch her, but she could feel his warmth and solidity, and a small smile curved her lips.

They were silent for a few minutes. Sydney closed her eyes and listened to Vaughn breathing, the soft sounds punctuated by midnight traffic outside their hotel room. Rather, her hotel room – the Agency had sprung for hotel rooms for the team to stay overnight in Cartagena after the operation, but rules were still rules. On paper, Vaughn was sleeping down the hall.

And Dixon was sleeping next door.

She opened her eyes and took a deep breath, rolling over to face Vaughn. He had been watching her – no surprise, but it still gave her a small thrill to watch him smile at her.

"You were right," she began softly, and he reached over to cup her cheek with his hand, rubbing his thumb gently along her brow. "About Dixon. He’s…not in a good place right now."

"Understandably." Vaughn skimmed his hand down to her bare shoulder, the warmth of his skin chasing away the slight chill that had settled there.

Sydney reached up to tangle her fingers with Vaughn’s, and brought their joined hands down to rest on the bed. The only light in the room was from the glow of the alarm clock and passing cars, and his angled face was beautiful in the shadows.

"I met Dixon the first day I came to SD-6. The real SD-6, not just my office work at Credit Dauphine. I bumped into him, and I was on my way to meeting Sloane, but even then there was something in him that made me trust him. I looked at him and I thought, if people like him work here, then maybe I can help do some good in the world." She shuddered slightly at the irony of remembrance and at the perspective gained in the intervening years.

"I don’t – I don’t know if you ever felt it, when you started working for the CIA, but the first few months I was a field agent…they were amazing. I told Barnett once that there’s no drug like adrenaline, and I spent that whole time living and breathing it. I never expected to be so good at something. It was an addiction.

"Dixon was a senior agent, and I was introduced to him, saw him around the shooting range and the gym, but I didn’t really meet him until Noah left. I was pretty upset then, so he probably didn’t have a really good first impression of me.

"Our first mission was a simple surveillance op, but it went wrong. Don’t they always?" Sydney shifted and squeezed his hand tightly at the memories – broken-hearted and running for her life in stocking feet, strappy heels long since abandoned.

"But this was the first time something went _that_ wrong, and I really thought I was going to die. Eventually, I made it to the extraction point. Dixon was waiting for me. He looked so worried, but then he looked so impressed. And for a few minutes it was like I never needed my father to be proud of me, because Dixon was."

She realized she was crying when Vaughn reached over and smoothed the tears from her cheeks, and she sniffled and cleared her throat to continue talking.

"That was the moment it all became real for me. I was sitting in the van, my feet were bleeding and I couldn’t take a deep breath, my wig was giving me such a headache I could barely think straight, and I realized then that I could actually _die_ doing this work. And Dixon was there with me.

"He didn’t say anything, but I knew he understood, and after that, we were a team. He kept me sane, and he kept me safe, and he was one of the few people that lived in both my worlds. He had a wonderful wife and beautiful children, and sometimes I could even pretend that he thought of me like a daughter.

"He never knew about Danny. He just thought it was a random tragedy. He was there with me at the funeral, and he was the one who tried to get me to come back to SD-6, and you know, when I found out…the first thing I thought was that it couldn’t be true, because Dixon wouldn’t be involved with something like that. But of course he didn’t know, and you have no idea how _hard_ it was…"

Tears were running freely now, and Vaughn gathered her against his chest. Sydney let herself sink into his embrace, fisting her hands in his t-shirt and staining it with tears. There was no elegance to her sorrow, just an ugly, snotty, hiccupping cry as she tried to process the slow self-destruction she had been watching from afar for the past four days.

She pushed away from him, giving herself space to start talking again.

"He’s so strong, Vaughn, so strong. And noble, and good. He’s everything I wanted to be as an agent. He does this to help people, not for the thrill of it, or for revenge. He just wants to make the world a safer place. And he helps me believe I can do that, too.

"Every time I picture him standing on that bridge, nothing makes sense anymore. Because if he can fall so far, then what kind of chance do I have?"

And she reached the crux of the matter. Marcus Dixon had been Sydney Bristow’s anchor for so long, she didn’t know what to do without his solid presence in her life.

"But he didn’t jump, and he didn’t arm the bomb tonight," Vaughn said firmly, threading his fingers through her hair, combing the strands that were damp from her tears. "Even when he was at his lowest, he was still the kind of person you see him as. The kind of person he _is_."

The terror came back to Sydney then, and she shuddered with the force of it, with the memory of watching Dixon scream, watching the red numbers tick down, and knowing that Vaughn was on the roof with Dixon in his crosshairs.

"He’s going to be okay, Syd," Vaughn whispered, and she slipped herself back into his arms, tucking in close to his chest and squeezing her eyes shut. Another car passed their window, and Sydney let herself exhale with the sound of its exhaust revving around the corner.

Vaughn stroked her back, long, soothing movements designed to ease some of the tension rippling through her muscles. Within a few minutes, she was drowsy enough to retain nothing but a fuzzy awareness of the world around her. She pressed a soft kiss against Vaughn’s chest, and fell willingly into sleep.


End file.
